From SHF 2011

This is actually a photo from last week, I just got around to pulling it off of the camera.  Fall has been really beautiful on the farm this year.  Today's share is basically the same as Monday's was.  Next week is the last week of fall, then we'll move into winter.  I'm not sure why but it's always strange to me that winter coincides with days getting longer, perhaps it is connected with my feeling that it's already winter and the days are still getting shorter even though it's not.  I just read a great post from a winter CSA down in Southern Oregon about the difference between main season harvest and winter harvests so I'll give you all the link here.  I have to add to it that besides the days being significantly shorter in the cold season and all of the snafus around frozen objects, somehow everything seems to take much longer, and probably does due to the extreme number of clothes required, constantly numb hands, and prodigious quantities of mud.  We also experience our most major pest problems in the winter, specifically voles and occasional deer.  I harvested the last of the parsnips today, from a planting that should have lasted for three harvests.  The voles had done a good job of leaving the tops completely in tact, and eating all but a very nubbin of a root.  The parsnips that were remaining were beautiful though, so enjoy and we'll hope we get ahead of them on the chicories and carrots.